


water weight

by angularmomentum



Series: #dirtbags [2]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic), Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Trespassing, claude giroux's dogs, offscreen adventures of sidney crosby, poutine, tangerine flavoured lube
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 10:38:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10615170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angularmomentum/pseuds/angularmomentum
Summary: The only things that make Philadelphia worthwhile, in Kent’s opinion, are the cheese steaks and the fact that the Flyers suck so badly even the home crowd hates them.Or: eat your feelings, piss off your neighbours, text your frenemies





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lanyon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanyon/gifts), [llwyncelyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/llwyncelyn/gifts).



> warnings for like, multiple mentions of vomit because #idiots

-

Philly

-

The only things that make Philadelphia worthwhile, in Kent’s opinion, are the cheese steaks and the fact that the Flyers suck so badly even the home crowd hates them. Kent has fond memories of someone in an orange jersey soaking him with beer over the glass, but only because they were aiming for Claude, their own captain. It’s truly majestic.

“I don’t even have to trash talk you,” Kent says, bent low over the blue line as he makes eye contact with Claude, “your fans are doing it for me.”

“Eat shit and die,” Claude mutters, shouldering Kent right out of the way and sending the puck flying over to Simmonds.

The Aces win 6-2, and the Flyers crowd nearly riots. Kent counts a couple actual pieces of rotten fruit on the ice, which is so amazing he considers snapchatting it to Crosby, until he remembers that Crosby is banned until Kent feels like forgiving him.

The only downer to the win is that Kent gets his lip split open by Gosty. It’s not bad enough to really be an issue. It’s just a huge pain because even Kent knows that kissing with a busted face is a great way to make it much, much worse, and he had pretty solid plans to invite himself to Claude’s later to pet his dogs and fuck him over his kitchen counter.

He’s still icing his face over the butterfly strips when he makes it out of the arena and back to the hotel, and he’s almost resigned himself to a night in when his phone chirps on the nightstand.

Kent doesn’t share a room anymore after unanimous consensus from the Aces that nobody wanted to rock-paper-scissors for being sexiled whenever they play Philly, so he’s forced to check it himself.

 _Food?_ the text says.

_I kno u don’t speak english but b more specific_

_Nice grammar, come get a fucking burger._ Claude’s melted traffic cone profile pic in Kent’s phone still makes him laugh.

Kent puts his shirt back on and agrees. It’s usually the same spot, and Claude is usually at the back behind the biggest booth.

It turns out trying to eat a burger with a split lip is almost as bad as trying to kiss with one, a fact Claude seems completely delighted by when Kent has to ask for a knife and fork to cut his half pound cheeseburger with. Kent gets through about a third before he decides he might as well just admit defeat and take it to go so he can have a snack later at Claude’s house. “So, you still want to fuck even if I can’t blow you?”

Claude rolls his eyes. He has ketchup in his beard. Kent wants to lick it off and manfully restrains himself.

“Would it kill you to be subtle?” Claude mutters, finishing his burger and reaching for Kent’s.

Kent swats his hand away. “Heteronormativity and a homosocial environment makes queerness invisible. I’m taking that to go.”

“What?”

Kent grins before he remembers it hurts when he does that and pushes the rest of his plate at Claude. “Never mind. Eat the fucking burger.”

-

Claude’s lube is tangerine flavoured. Kent considers leaving, until he remembers he won’t have to put it in his mouth this time. A good result all around, even if Claude should honestly be shot or something for even picking it up in the first place.

“Why do you even have this?” Kent asks, holding the tube between the tip of his index finger and his thumb. “What godless hellscape do you live in?”

“Philly,” Claude says, taking off his shirt. “Do you want me to fuck you or not?”

Kent really can’t say no to an invitation like that.

It’s pretty much the worst, because Kent splits his lip slightly open again on the underside of Claude’s jaw where he can’t stop himself from mouthing at him. It’s also the best cap to a win ever, because Kent gets to make Claude hold him up against the wall until Kent can feel him shaking.

Sure, maybe G drops him, but Kent’s ass can definitely take it, and Kent is all for the brick red flush that creeps up Claude’s whole chest when Kent laughs at him. It clashes with his beard.

“Shut up,” Claude mutters. “Like you’d do better.”

Kent can’t resist a challenge. When Claude reaches down to haul him to his feet Kent turns and presses him into the ugly green of his wallpaper, sliding a thigh between his legs before he lifts him by the hips. Claude is too heavy to keep it going long, but by the time he’s starting to lose his grip Claude is way too far gone to complain about it.

Kent drags them over to the couch, and they make good enough use of the abomination masquerading as lubricant as Kent coats Claude’s hand and wilfully encourages him to get on with stretching him open.

Claude does what he’s told for once, which is almost enough to get Kent off right there, but then Claude goes slowly enough that his fingers become a new and interesting form of torture.

Kent curses at him. Claude smiles, missing lateral incisor a punctuation mark to his clear enjoyment of inflicting pain on Kent Parson, specifically.

“See if I ever let you put your dick in me again if it takes you this long,” Kent hisses, finally sliding down at just the right angle. It takes him a second to adjust, so he plants his hands on Giroux’s chest, feeling the quick rise and fall of his ribs. “Okay, go, I’ll tell you when to stop.”

“I’m a captain too you know,” Claude says, grabbing Kent by the hips.

Kent bucks into the grip, digging red crescents into Claude’s shoulders. “Very impressive,” Kent assures him. “Come on, put your back into it.”

Claude does.

-

Gatineau River

-

The thing most people forget about Parson is that he’s not actually a total dick. For one thing, his team loves the hell out of him, which Claude can grudgingly understand, from a certain point of view.

The 09-ers mostly did go to shitty, struggling franchises, and of all of them, only the Aces have stepped up to the promise of their first round draft picks. Kent got picked up by Vegas, and then suddenly he was picking them up, that infuriating little smirk still firmly in place all the way to a Stanley Cup.

Claude can’t say he knows the feeling, but he does know what it feels like when Kent turns the full force of his personality on him, and how treacherously great it feels when he does what Kent wants him to do.

There’s something about how easy it is to delight him that is dangerous to Claude’s personal sense of equilibrium, which requires that Parson be a rival first, an occasionally irritating lay second, and a person whose sleeping habits he knows well enough to accommodate third.

It’s very hard to maintain that when Parson shows up in Montreal and sends him a snapchat of himself wearing a _Sarkozy y était_ t-shirt while PK gives him the finger in the background, then texts Claude right after to ask if he’s nearby.

 _I’m at the cottage._ Claude, after a moment’s hesitation, drops him a pin.

Kent shows up at one in the morning in a purple SUV, looking sun-peeled and unrepentant.

“Kipper,” Claude says, still on the porch getting steadily buzzed. “You’re late.”

“Had to run an errand.” Kent stands in the driveway for a moment, stretching until his back cracks audibly. “I want to swim. Do you want to swim?”

Claude is used to his non-sequiturs, but something seems a little strained about him tonight. Not that Claude cares, of course, except for how Claude might not get laid if Parson isn’t feeling it, and then him staying over will probably be a little weird. Not insurmountably weird, but they don’t do that, as a rule.

Kent doesn’t, anyway. Claude would probably accept spooning as a perfectly good way to spend a summer evening, but then again Claude would also make himself a grilled cheese and jerk off in front of WWE and call it a solid night in, so what the fuck does he know.

“Yeah, okay.” Claude goes inside for towels, leaving Kent in the driveway bent backwards from the waist, staring up at the blurry half moon that’s giving off most of the light. The lake is only a bit down the hill from Claude’s place, but suddenly Claude, possibly as the result of Parson’s weird silence, has a truly terrible idea. “You know,” he says, stopping at a fork in the path, thick trees closing overhead now that they’ve left the clearing of his house, “my neighbours have a diving board.”

Kent’s grin is bright white in the darkness. “Yeah?”

“It’s high.” It’s about five metres up, sticking incongruously off the side of their boathouse. Claude is banned from it, due to the fact that last year he and his ex got drunk, grabbed a bunch of friends and tried to start waterskiing off it, resulting in several splinters to the ass and some structural damage to the boathouse siding. Claude paid for the repairs, but the Desjardins still aren’t speaking to him. He likes their labrador better than he likes them though, so the feeling is mutual.

“High enough to cannonball?”

“Clean you right out,” Claude confirms.

They cut through the woods, climb the ladder built into the side of the boathouse with no shortage of hushed laughter, but no lights come on in the house by the time they reach the top of the platform. “How deep is the water again?” Kent asks, looking down into the blackness of the lake.

“‘Bout two metres.”

“That’s _it_?”

“Keep your knees up,” Claude advises, kicking off his flip flops. After a second, he strips off his shirt and shorts too, finally dispensing with his underwear.

“Gonna keep your hat on, huh?” Kent says, following suit.

Claude hadn’t even noticed himself putting it back on, so there’s no way he’s taking it off now. “Aerodynamics.”

Kent flips him off, dropping his clothes in a pile. Naked in the dark he seems much smaller than he actually is, bulk of him hidden by the lowlights in the hollows of his body. Claude reflects on the absurdity of it for a second, a sense of bubbling hysteria rising up his throat. The boards under his feet are rough with years of weathering, and everything smells like water and the soap-and-flowers scent of Kent’s deodorant. Claude already feels like he’s hitting the cold lake below, night breeze raising goosebumps on his skin.

“On—”

Before Claude can say “three” Kent whoops at deafening volume and launches himself off the platform head first, arms spread out wide like he might actually be able to catch an updraft. The splash as he hits the water sounds loud until Kent breaks the surface again and yells “fuck! It’s cold!” at the top of his considerable lungs.

The dog starts barking, and then, in the distance, Claude’s dogs join in. The lights come on in the Desjardin house, and Claude is forced to make a split second decision to stop laughing so hard and jump as well, remembering to close his mouth just in time to hit the water.

“Giroux! If that’s you I’m gonna call the cops again! Get off my property!”

“Asshole!” Claude hisses, splashing Kent in the face where he’s treading water. “It would’ve killed you to be quiet?”

Kent lays back on the surface of the lake, floating for a second before he starts to sink, spitting streams out through his teeth as the sound of dogs gets louder. “We should swim, huh?”

Claude beats it toward the shore, and makes a break for it back to the property line with Kent cackling on his heels. It’s not until they’re picking their way, tender-footed, over Claude’s gravel that he remembers their clothes. “Oh fuck,” he gasps, out of breath. They fall through the back door, Claude’s dogs scratching at his bare legs in relief at his return. “We left our stuff.”

“And your hat fell off,” Kent points out, dripping onto Claude’s kitchen floor and offering his face for delighted doggy kisses. “CSI’ll be banging down the door any second now.”

“I hate you,” Claude lies, sitting down on the hardwood with his back against the door, lap full of squirming furball. He buries his toes in Kent’s bony ankle, hands occupied with scratching a willingly offered belly. “You know that, right?”

“You and everyone else,” Kent says, straightening up. “I’ll get towels.”

Claude watches him go and wonders if he should go after him. In the end, he decides to just leave him be. A part of Claude is still too occupied staring at his ass to form coherent thoughts, so it doesn’t occur to him until Kent is out of sight to even wonder why he didn’t just come out in the morning like a normal fucking person.

Claude thinks about asking, but he doesn’t. Kent comes back with two big towels from the linen closet and thrusts one at Claude. He takes it and shoves the dogs off his lap. “Beer?” Claude asks, because that’s what you do when you have guests, even if they show up in the dead of night and get you in trouble with your neighbours.

“Nah,” Kent demurs. “What time is it?”

It’s about two according to the clock on the oven, and there’s no sign yet of police sirens. “Bed?” Claude offers. “You can be the little spoon.”

Kent’s face does something complicated. It looks like it might be a smile, but Claude is horrified at himself for being able to tell that it isn’t. “Is this just your stunted French way of saying you want to cuddle?”

“Take it or leave it.”

“If you drool on me I’m out of here,” Kent says by way of an answer.

Nevertheless, when they make it up the stairs Kent does tuck himself under one of Claude’s arms, and he does make room for both dogs, pressing back into Claude’s space with a determined wriggle of his hips.

In the morning Claude wakes up with Kent’s morning wood pressing insistently against his thigh, so the least he can do it kiss him awake and offer a morning blow job.

Kent laughs and cards his fingers through Claude’s curls, raking them back off his forehead. Claude, mouth full, takes him deeper, until his nose grazing Kent’s coarse spread of —okay, strawberry blonde— hair. He keeps it up until he can’t breathe, then pulls back a bit, enjoying the low whine he draws from Parson. He clenches a hand around the back of Kent’s thigh and spreads his legs trying for a better angle.

He half expects Kent to close the hand in his hair into a fist, to clench and drag Claude where he wants him, but instead it’s all slow and hot and easy, and Kent comes with a sigh instead of a bitten-off scream. Claude swallows because it feels like far too much effort to leave the comfortable space between Kent’s legs to go spit into the sink.

Kent keeps stroking him idly as Claude brings himself off, fingers twisting Claude’s hair into loose, sweat-damp coils. Claude goes back to sleep like that, cheek mashed into Parson’s belly. They can deal with the wet spot later.

-

Kent stays for three days before it occurs to Claude to ask him when he’s leaving.

Kent pauses with a bite of his pancakes hanging half out of his mouth. “I can go today if you want,” he mumbles, swallowing too fast.

“Whatever,” Claude waves at the little timber-framed kitchen. “Stay or don’t."

“I want poutine,” Kent says, finishing his mouthful. “A huge one. The grosser the better.”

“Poutine’s not gross.” Claude is irrationally offended.

“Jesus, it’s like they grow you in a vat,” Parson says. “What’s the entire gene pool of every hockey player in Quebec? I’m concerned.”

Claude throws a blueberry at him. “I’m from Hearst.”

“Say your ‘H’ and I’ll believe you.”

-

Kent rejects every likely diner in the greater Wakefield area before Claude begins to contemplate murder. Parson is driving the huge purple rental he’s insisted on referring to as Mother for some reason, and Claude is about to throw himself out the window and make a break for it. He’d probably be able to flag down a car on a Saturday afternoon, and the likelihood of getting killed will only go up if they’re Habs fans. Parson will probably find the dogs good homes.

He’s spinning this hypothetical scenario out in his mind to tune out the awful sounds of something deeply electronic blasting from the radio when Kent swerves across three lanes and drives into a deserted-looking truck stop with a sad, striped awning covering a set of desultory picnic tables.

 _If you finish you eat free!_ says a faded French sign on the side of the pre-fab building.

Claude looks at Kent. “No.”

“Yes.” Parson takes the keys out of the ignition.

“How did you even read that?” Claude asks, knowing it’s a lost cause.

Parson’s grin widens to truly shark-like proportions. “What, you think we won’t win?”

Claude knows what he’s doing. Claude also knows that the word “win” is some kind of bizarre catnip to all professional athletes, and he has the scars to prove it, courtesy of one Sidney Crosby and his vicious slashes to the wrists.

Claude closes his eyes. Claude opens them again. The sign has not gone away, and neither has Parson. “Bet you I finish first,” he says, snatching at the possibility of victory from the jaws of defeat.

The three other people in the truck stop and stare at them when they walk in. A teenage girl with flat, matte-black hair and three nose rings lifts her phone without changing her expression and takes an audible picture. Parson throws her a peace sign. “We heard there was free poutine.”

“What did he say?” The woman behind the counter looks at Claude, expecting him to translate.

He does, asking for two of the special, and then, as Parson leads them outside to take over one of the picnic tables only nominally protected from the sun, people start arriving. First it’s just a couple guys from across the street, then three more teenage girls, two of whom are pointing phones already and one who asks Kent nicely for a selfie.

Pretty soon Kent has somehow gathered a respectable audience.

The poutine is the size of Claude’s literal head.

Kent makes a delighted noise and goes for the fries at the bottom first. Claude hesitates for a second, transfixed by the amount of food he manages to stuff into his mouth, before Parson raises both eyebrows in obvious challenge.

It takes them forty-five minutes to admit defeat, but only because by the time Claude reaches the gravy-soaked cheese curds that have nearly turned to liquid on the bottom he almost has a repeat encounter with breakfast. No way is Claude losing his years-long puke-free streak for poutine. He cannot physically stand to take another bite.

Kent slams his head down on the silvered wood and holds up a fist. “Canada two, Parson zero,” he groans.

A chorus of jeers from the twelve people filming them is their exit music. Parson pays everyone’s bill and signs a few autographs. Claude watches him, signing one or two of his own and wondering what the story will be in the morning.

Whatever it is, it probably won’t be the truth, which is that in the car on the way back Claude has to drive because Kent turns green halfway there and they have to stop so he can puke in some unfortunate bushes.

Claude, smug at having won by default by virtue of keeping it all down, will never tell a single soul that when he’s blowing Parson later his dick catches him at just the wrong spot in the back of his throat, and Claude swallows only just in time to keep his record.

All in all, it’s probably the worst blow job Claude has ever given anyone. Parson doesn't seem to mind.

-

 _The fuck is Parson doing in Q?_ Crosby texts him later. God, if people knew how profane their golden boy was there’d be a Canada-wide meltdown. Possibly they’d have to deploy the reserves.

 _Me, obviously,_ G texts back. _Still banned?_

Sid doesn’t answer, which is enough to leave Claude laughing even after Parse takes off way too early the next morning and leaves Claude to discover the sheer volume of ruined boxers he’s left behind.

-

**Author's Note:**

> offscreen somewhere sidney crosby is watching the poutine video and masturbating furiously


End file.
